That's kind of horseshit. Japan fucked up the Death Note movie back in 2006 too.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh respectfully disagree. That movie was good enough I wanted to show it to family. And was good enough that family enjoyed it. The movie also (in my biased opinion) is superior to the canon manga. Really, really think that ... (endgame spoilers for Death Note):

the manga jumps the shark the moment you end the cat-and-mouse game between Light and L. However you choose to end it, ending it should be the end of the story. The movie got that right. The manga did not. Worse, the arc that follows in the manga veers the story into retarded "government-project superbabies" territory. It's just dumb. I know I haven't read it properly nor seen the anime, but I don't want to either. What I read on Wikipedia was more than enough to turn me off.

Also: I much, much prefer how the Japanese movie ends the cat-and-mouse game to how the manga does. It just makes so much more sense, and is so much more satisfying.

That stated, it is a shame that the Netflix adaptation sucked. I had high hopes. While I enjoyed the Japanese live-action movie, it was plagued by the same problems that most anime-to-cinema adaptations are in Japan: weak(er) acting; cheese; and abridging. The Netflix adaptation had the potential to fix all of this. It's a shame that it instead veered off the rails, told its own made-up story, and that its made-up story was so poor.

I still have high hopes for a Western live-action adaptation of Kaiji. It needs to happen.

The final volume of OreGairu has been released and it's set off the first nuclear explosion in Japan since Nagasaki.

Wataru Watari has unleashed his unfetted misanthropy upon the world by cucking Hachiman. Somehow, he managed to wreck every single dream for the main characters and everyone is miserable and depressed.

It would be like Holden returning home from the psych ward only to find out Stradlater is banging Phoebe.

I won't say much until the final details are out. Too many people on 2channel are conflating their rage with actual plot events. But man.

This is almost like Oreimo 2.0 where a bitter, angry author pretty much does what he wants in the final chapter.

Seems weird to have Hachiman wind up with none of the choices. I only ever got as far as Yui vs. Yukino, haven't met Girl 3 yet, but like ... even if the author and/or the story disagrees that Yuigahama is the best girl and it gives it to Yukinoshita, that's fine! Give it to her! But at least have Hachiman wind up with somebody.

I thought the only time I would ever see Hachiman wind up alone was in netorare doujins.

The anime goes through Volume 11 and reportedly, Volume 11 was very good. Volume 12 sounds like the Harry Potter epilogue at the end of Deathly Hallows.

I didn't watch the second anime because of the art style change - it seems like the light novel also experienced the shift and it's decidedly negative. For one Iroha and Yui can't be told apart in the same frame except looking at Yui's bun.

I meant that as a joke but I really do think referring to the franchise as "Yahari" is dumb as heck. Even if Haganai has a bizarre literal meaning it's unique enough to at least recognize as a title. "Yahari" is a common word that means "As expected". It would be like referring to a title as Oh yeah.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

Wait. Confused. I thought you watched S2. If not ... what volume does S1 end with? What volume does S2 end with? Is there more anime past S2? (OAVs? S3?)

I've kept tabs on plot events from the novel, I did not watch the second season anime. Season 1 is a heavily butchered and restitched condensation of Volumes 1-6. Season 2 is a less butchered condensation of Volumes 7-11. It is worth watching if you can get over the art style shift. I couldn't.

At this point I'm going to consider the visual novel the true end. It's one of those novels where the route girl gets a pregnancy CG at the end. It also has Yukino in a wedding gown. That is an ending worth fighting for.

Today is a huge day in anime. I'm sure the last one of these announcements is going to put BBB on Prozac:

1. The director for Kemono Friends, who was the brain behind everything from S1, was fired from S2 by producer Kadokawa
2. To aru Majutsu no Index season 3, after 7 years since season 2, was announced via a leak. Kadokawa's Twitter accidentally released an interview with the prospective director basically admitting the project has been greenlit that wasn't supposed to be posted until October 5.
3. One Punch Man S2 is not being animated by Madhouse. It's being done...by JC Staff.

#3 is pretty good if you're an Overlord fan. Overlord got shafted during S1 because most of the top-tier production team was siphoned away to work on OPM. Now, Overlord S2 is going to be Madhouse's marquee title for Winter 2018.

It's especially fitting that the Overlord light novel is actually no longer being marketed as a "light novel" anymore. With the last several volumes averaging 400 pages, it's now in the higher-prestige "novel" territory, along the same vein as titles like Seikai (Banner of the Stars), Slayers and Ginei (aka Legend of the Galactic Heroes).

1. The director for Kemono Friends, who was the brain behind everything from S1, was fired from S2 by producer Kadokawa

All I know of Kemono Friends is that the serval is popular.

According to Wiki, the series was created by none other than the man who penned Keroro Gunsou! Yoshizaki Mine. However, even on his own Wikipedia page, it's explained that he was more of a "concept designer" than a writer for it? And the Kemono Friends page indicates that the director, Tatsuki, is the anime series' writer as well. Soo ... if it is as you say, and this man Tatsuki is the one who can be largely credited for making the anime what it is, both as its director and as its principal writer, then it sure does seem odd that they'd scrap him in favor of somebody new when ... he's the one who made the product that people are in love with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

2. To aru Majutsu no Index season 3, after 7 years since season 2, was announced via a leak. Kadokawa's Twitter accidentally released an interview with the prospective director basically admitting the project has been greenlit that wasn't supposed to be posted until October 5.

Huh. Interesting. A, this is good news for Index fans disappointed by how Railgun took over the franchise, I guess. (Don't know. Haven't seen either one!) B, this is great news for Haruhi fans and fans of other franchises that are waiting on long overdue sequels. If they can make Index S3 seven years after S2, they can make Rozen Maiden S3, Haruhi S3, Kaiji S3, the list goes on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

3. One Punch Man S2 is not being animated by Madhouse. It's being done...by JC Staff.

HAHAHAHA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

WHY!?

Why would they do this!? A, why would MadHouse pass on the opportunity to do what you have always argued to be the better half of OPM? And B, why would The Powers That Be snub MadHouse and hand the torch on to J.C. Staff who, a few wonderful exceptions aside (Toradora!, Sakurasou), really haven't had the best track record to date? I mean, I didn't even watch it, but I'm still reeling from what by all accounts was their botched adaptation of Key's Little Busters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

#3 is pretty good if you're an Overlord fan. Overlord got shafted during S1 because most of the top-tier production team was siphoned away to work on OPM. Now, Overlord S2 is going to be Madhouse's marquee title for Winter 2018.

orz

I mean ... I guess it's great news for Overlord fans! But man, this is tragic news for OPM fans. You wait years for Season 2, only to be told it's going to be done by J.C. Staff ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

It's especially fitting that the Overlord light novel is actually no longer being marketed as a "light novel" anymore. With the last several volumes averaging 400 pages, it's now in the higher-prestige "novel" territory, along the same vein as titles like Seikai (Banner of the Stars), Slayers and Ginei (aka Legend of the Galactic Heroes).

I have thoughts and questions about this, but I guess I will shelve them for now.

According to Wiki, the series was created by none other than the man who penned Keroro Gunsou! Yoshizaki Mine. However, even on his own Wikipedia page, it's explained that he was more of a "concept designer" than a writer for it? And the Kemono Friends page indicates that the director, Tatsuki, is the anime series' writer as well. Soo ... if it is as you say, and this man Tatsuki is the one who can be largely credited for making the anime what it is, both as its director and as its principal writer, then it sure does seem odd that they'd scrap him in favor of somebody new when ... he's the one who made the product that people are in love with.

Tatsuki (I'm not too familiar with his name) gets 100% credit for turning KM into a cult hit. KM had the most shoestring of budgets, something like $20,000 USD with most of that money going to the CV's, but he pulled it off.

But the guy also has a big mouth, and was saying some dumb, vain things on the heels of that success. So I'm not surprised Kado canned him, he rubbed someone the wrong way.

It isn't the first time Kado has fired someone who pissed them off - take Yamankan, who was the series composition director for Haruhi and was the guy who came up with, and choreographed, "Hare Hare Yukai" and "Motteke! Sailor Fuku". He got too full of himself behind the scenes and Kado requested he get pulled. His comments about anime following Wake Up Girls! show he hasn't changed, and that's why in the 10 years since hitting it big he hasn't found much work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

Huh. Interesting. A, this is good news for Index fans disappointed by how Railgun took over the franchise, I guess. (Don't know. Haven't seen either one!) B, this is great news for Haruhi fans and fans of other franchises that are waiting on long overdue sequels. If they can make Index S3 seven years after S2, they can make Rozen Maiden S3, Haruhi S3, Kaiji S3, the list goes on.

Rozen Maiden season 3 huh...that would be quite the dream come true.

That said, I think the departure from Index was more the studio (which is JC Staff) pursuing other, more lucrative ventures. You might remember SHAFT was all the rage around 2009-2010, with huge brand name series like Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei and Hidamari Sketch to balance out one-shot titles like Natsu no Arashi!, Arakawa Under the Bridge and Dance in the Vampire Bund.

What happened to SHAFT? Four words: Puella Magi Madoka Magica. SHAFT hit the motherload with a totally original, blockbuster IP that they could milk for decades. One title like that was able to buoy Gainax for 20 years, and that was in addition to SHAFT's already mega huge licensed franchise, the Monogatari series.

Look at SHAFT's anime since 2010. There's a few random series like [email protected] and Nisekoi, but the overwhelming majority is Monogatari and Madoka. Because those are the cash cows. They can't even divert resources to finishing Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei which was also a cash cow, but pales compared to those two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

HAHAHAHA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

WHY!?

Why would they do this!? A, why would MadHouse pass on the opportunity to do what you have always argued to be the better half of OPM? And B, why would The Powers That Be snub MadHouse and hand the torch on to J.C. Staff who, a few wonderful exceptions aside (Toradora!, Sakurasou), really haven't had the best track record to date? I mean, I didn't even watch it, but I'm still reeling from what by all accounts was their botched adaptation of Key's Little Busters.

Madhouse has gained a rep lately that they don't do second seasons. Which is what made the Overlord and No Game, No Life movie so surprising.

I'll say this. Shueisha is the producer for OPM. Madhouse was already not expecting the quality for S2 to match S1, based on the same budget (because a lot of free lancers donated time/effort due to their love of the source and wanting to outdo one another). Madhouse doesn't have to settle for a cheap title anymore, they're basically the top anime studio left right now that isn't pigeon holed into making otakubait anime.

Shueisha itself has been taking hits by the reduction of value for Weekly Shounen Jump. Things have been on a precipitous decline with the ending of Naruto and Bleach. The bleeding has slowed somewhat thanks to Boruto and Boku no Hero Academia but the company still took major hits between late 2015 and now. Maybe they couldn't pay up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

orz

I mean ... I guess it's great news for Overlord fans! But man, this is tragic news for OPM fans. You wait years for Season 2, only to be told it's going to be done by J.C. Staff ...

I'm just speculating, but with Volume 12 coming out this Saturday, and Volume 13 (presumably!) before the end of the year or at latest February, things are looking good for the Scourge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

I have thoughts and questions about this, but I guess I will shelve them for now.

I actually don't know too much about the branding myself. What I do know is that Overlord is pretty small for a novel - which can go up to 800 pages, give or take - but it's gotten too large for a light novel, which is about 200-300 pages.

Slayers and Ginei, by page count, are closer to Haruhi as light novels than true novels, but they more or less preexisted the concept of a "light novel", which didn't rise to prominence until Haruhi, I wager. So this is a pretty interesting step for Overlord to sort of assert its legitimacy.

On the topic of light novels, I'm having a hard time finding academic definitions of a ライトノベル raito noberu versus a ノベル noberu or a 小説 shousetsu. There's a lot of answers given from the armchair in English, a lot of circular citations of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's own sources, however, don't stand up to the rigorous questions I have. Even the Japanese article has this to say:

ライトノベルの定義に関してはさまざまな考え方があり、業界内でも明確な基準は確立されていな い。

(Regarding the definition of a light novel, there are various ways of thinking, and even within the industry a clear/precise standard has not been established.)

Disheartening.

The article goes on to mention how there are even arguments that The Tale of Genji shares many features in common with light novels. (I assume this to mean that it becomes difficult to classify books as "light novels" if the criteria you select are criteria which would also fit what is agreed upon to be the world's first novel!) It also discusses possible reasons for the genesis of the term, which dates back to 1990, and how the Western labels "Junior" and "Young Adult" wouldn't work in Japan.

In general, there seem to be three criteria which determine whether a book is a light novel or a novel proper:

book length

paragraph length

ease of reading (e.g. vocabulary, kanji)

While there may not be any formal definition for us to cite, the idea seems to be that light novels typically use fewer difficult kanji, fewer difficult words, shorter paragraphs, and are not especially long.

Thus, if Overlord is getting to be quite long but is continuing to use easy words, short paragraphs, and easy kanji (as compared with classical literature?), then we might still say that Overlord is a light novel series and that its most recent entries are simply grotesquely long. If, on the other hand, Overlord is entering into Nasu Kinoko levels of reading difficulty AND it's becoming obscenely long, then perhaps it might shift over from being considered a grotequesly long light novel to being considered a puerile novel appealing to readers with juvenile taste. (This is not a potshot at Overlord or its fans. I myself hope to watch it soon. This is just me being perfectly honest that Overlord is like the Jurassic World of literature and not the Brothers Karamazov.)

Overlord is not especially difficult to read - high school level, I wager - but other novels like Banner of the Stars are insanely difficult, due to technical terms invented using archaic kanji. It's been said that even Japanese readers struggle with Banner and that's the main reason of the more famous novels two decades ago, it never even received a translation attempt.

However, most light novels are below high school level reading. Konosuba is considered average, and Sky says it's late elementary/early junior high tier. Like the equivalent of an Animorph or Goosebumps book, which I would consider pretty dang juvenile.

To me, for years light novel was synonymous was "short story", having no otaku connotations, merely a truncated format compared to a feature-length story. But because of the flood of web novels and trashy, Dragon Quest-esque self-insert power fantasy RPG isekai - the term light novel is starting to get a bad name.

Remember "pulp fiction"? No negative connotations today but long long ago it was a derogatory term meant for identifying low-quality writing. I'd argue the reverse is true now.

Ten years ago, in 2007, if you needed a definition of light novel you need not go further than to link Haruhi's Wikipedia article. That is what a light novel is and how writing one is approached, one would stay.

Stack it against a "light novel" of today, like "I was reincarnated into a fantasy world and my raging erection won't die down" and try to find a best-fit definition. Well, they're both written in Japanese...

Most light novels are below high school level reading. Konosuba is considered average, and Sky says it's late elementary/early junior high tier. Like the equivalent of an Animorph or Goosebumps book, which I would consider pretty dang juvenile.

I think the big difference here is owed to the kanji. In English, either you know the word you're reading or you don't, but either way you can still phonetically read it / sound it out. There's nothing to decode. With Japanese, it's not enough that a word is in your vocabulary -- its associated Chinese character has to be in your toolkit too, otherwise you're not going to be able to read the word. No American eight year old is going to get tripped up by "pretty", but a Japanese eight year old might well get tripped up by "綺麗" even though he'd have known the word if only you had written it as "きれい" instead.

"Late elementary / early junior high" sounds like it'd be about right, assuming the books are intended for a middle school audience. It's by Grade 6 that you finish learning the Kyōiku kanji, the first half of the Jōyō kanji that all Japanese adults are expected to be able to read.

"Japanese school children are expected to learn 1006 basic kanji characters, the kyōiku kanji, before finishing the sixth grade. The order in which these characters are learned is fixed. The kyōiku kanji list is a subset of a larger list, originally of 1945 kanji characters, in 2010 extended to 2136, known as the jōyō kanji – characters required for the level of fluency necessary to read newspapers and literature in Japanese. This larger list of characters is to be mastered by the end of the ninth grade. Schoolchildren learn the characters by repetition and radical." - Wikipedia, "Kanji Education"

If light novels really are targeted towards a lower level of literacy than "novels proper" are, then it would make sense to me that light novels target the middle school demographic. It's all but guaranteed that if you've managed to make it into middle school that you can at least read the most basic 1,000 characters. But at the same time, by the time you reach high school it's all but guaranteed that you can read the full Jōyō list. It's sort of a chicken-and-the-egg problem we have here -- "Are light novels intended for middle schoolers and thus they dumb down the language used? Or are light novels intended from the outset to be easy reads and thus they appeal to a middle school demographic?" -- but either way it makes sense to me why we would observe what we're observing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

To me, for years light novel was synonymous was "short story", having no otaku connotations, merely a truncated format compared to a feature-length story.

See, I don't get how this idea ever took hold. It's true that a light novel like Haruhi is shorter than your usual novel -- when translated into English, it only weighs in at around 200 pages -- but 200 pages is hardly what I'd consider to be "a novella". Rather, I'd consider it "a slim novel." Most novellas I feel are in that 100-to-175 page range. Most short stories range from 5 pages to at the most 60 pages. I'd never consider Haruhi a "short story." I'd never tell someone, "Light novel is just a term that means 'short story' in Japanese." But my research today has shown that there are a ton of people who either had or who still have that notion about light novels.

Pre-orders might be here as soon as Wednesday afternoon/night. The novel goes on sale in stores on September 30, and the Amazon crew are going to get it a day earlier. Spoilers might even be here as early as tomorrow.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

"Late elementary / early junior high" sounds like it'd be about right, assuming the books are intended for a middle school audience. It's by Grade 6 that you finish learning the Kyōiku kanji, the first half of the Jōyō kanji that all Japanese adults are expected to be able to read.

"Japanese school children are expected to learn 1006 basic kanji characters, the kyōiku kanji, before finishing the sixth grade. The order in which these characters are learned is fixed. The kyōiku kanji list is a subset of a larger list, originally of 1945 kanji characters, in 2010 extended to 2136, known as the jōyō kanji – characters required for the level of fluency necessary to read newspapers and literature in Japanese. This larger list of characters is to be mastered by the end of the ninth grade. Schoolchildren learn the characters by repetition and radical." - Wikipedia, "Kanji Education"

If light novels really are targeted towards a lower level of literacy than "novels proper" are, then it would make sense to me that light novels target the middle school demographic. It's all but guaranteed that if you've managed to make it into middle school that you can at least read the most basic 1,000 characters. But at the same time, by the time you reach high school it's all but guaranteed that you can read the full Jōyō list. It's sort of a chicken-and-the-egg problem we have here -- "Are light novels intended for middle schoolers and thus they dumb down the language used? Or are light novels intended from the outset to be easy reads and thus they appeal to a middle school demographic?" -- but either way it makes sense to me why we would observe what we're observing.

Light novels are actually targeted at young adult male demographics, age 16-30+...with the amount of sex, crimes (like rape/murder) and sociopathy in the stories, there's no way that publishers would intend for these works to be read alongside kid's stuff. Consider Dengeki Bunko, which publishes monthly LN chapters in the same way Charles Dickens published Oliver Twist as a periodical in Bentley's Miscellany. You see Tora Dora! among the notables. Not intended for kids who just graduated from Doraemon, no?

Why light novels have such elementary writing? There's a number of theories, but most of them are troll theories, like how Japanese literacy is on the decline and otaku are too stupid and/or lazy to bother to learn more advanced kanji. At the same time, stuff is way too elementary to simply be "newspaper-tier", especially since kanji difficulty is rated based on its frequency of appearance in newspapers.

My idea is that the writing skill of most of these VN authors is quite low. They can read, but are not very adept at expressing themselves. That's why so many LNs now are borrowing the same format (isekai) with only marginally different twists - you have a host of folks who could probably write a high school essay, trying to write what is essentially a fanfiction about their OC universe.

It's hard, and I notice my own attempts at fanfiction are below the level of analytic dexterity I display in more practiced formats like essays. Or writing posts. When one struggles there is a pursuit of comfort, often found in familiarity, which I believe drives the level of difficulty down for LNs.

Incidentally, here is a frog man who broke it down a few years ago, before isekai really exploded on the scene and did many of the things he cautions the reader to avoid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

See, I don't get how this idea ever took hold. It's true that a light novel like Haruhi is shorter than your usual novel -- when translated into English, it only weighs in at around 200 pages -- but 200 pages is hardly what I'd consider to be "a novella". Rather, I'd consider it "a slim novel." Most novellas I feel are in that 100-to-175 page range. Most short stories range from 5 pages to at the most 60 pages. I'd never consider Haruhi a "short story." I'd never tell someone, "Light novel is just a term that means 'short story' in Japanese." But my research today has shown that there are a ton of people who either had or who still have that notion about light novels.

I guess the word "light" is what generated that connotation. Though Haruhi is closest to a novella in length rather than a short story.

I definitely do not agree with the modern idea that light novels have an otaku bent. I don't see that much at all in Haruhi, clearly branded as a light novel. Haruhi has a lot more in common with the novels of the '80s and '90s, both in length and in focus.

It's even worse that it's published in a volume with art. Most isekai that get featured in magazines go through a "whatever sticks" approach. Kadokawa fishes out the most popular stories on web novel sites (the Japanese equivalent of fanfiction.net), gives 'em some publishing screen-time, and the most popular of them proceed to the art/volume stage.

Rumour has it though, that Kadokawa has been so swamped with low-quality entries it's instituted an age restriction for submitting novels. I've seen it labeled a "teenager ban", so I guess you must be 18 or older to write?